Post #088 ~ Dyspraxia Awareness Week (9th-15th October 2016)

This week marks the time when it becomes absolutely acceptable to promote Dyspraxia and DCD far and wide. So don’t be afraid to share any content fired around from the Dyspraxia Foundation or the various bloggers and vloggers.

Dyspraxia and DCD affects the same amount of people as Dyslexia does, however, Dyspraxia remains fairly unknown. The biggest problem is the media, you don’t hear about many people with Dyspraxia, real life or fictional – except Daniel Radcliffe who has helped promote Dyspraxia greatly within the last few years.

But what is Dyspraxia/DCD (Developmental C0-ordination Disorder)?

It is a life term condition that can affect certain day-to-day activities such as:
Co-ordination, Speech & Language, Social Skills, Processing, Planning & Organisation, Emotions, Physical & Stamina and Sensory.

Of those aspects here how it can affect the individual:

Number Cruncher

10% of the UK population has Dyspraxia – 2% of those have it severely
Dyspraxia occurs 2-4x more likely to occur in males than females
5% of Children in the UK have Dyspraxia
1980s – The year the term ‘Dyspraxia’ is first used

I am glad to see posts about dyspraxia as I was diagnosed over 25 yrs ago and lived through to my retirement from struggling to survive alone as my dyspraxia was dormant for 38 yrs and was awakened through a RTA coma but I had escaped the traumatic experience till 13th August 1989 (Friday) 11.30 pm. This coupled with PTSD and long-term memory loss slowed my recovery down to about 1% a year approximately with extreme pain throughout my head and body but . . . I can actually admit this did pass after 18 yrs of which any pain in my head continues slightly which I believe happens as a warning for me to adjust my lifestyle accordingly. I say that the dyspraxia was dormant only because my brother had to go to a special school from an infants class because of slowness back in the early 50’s or I could say that any head injury can bring it on as even brain surgeons only know about 50% of what is actually happening in the microscopic regions of one’s brain. One of my goals was to post awareness of dyspraxia and write my personal experience but had to wait for my memory to properly return of which it is but I am extremely glad / happy to see other people acknowledging this unrecognised injury enough to pass on to others. Doctors and professional people did not understand this deep-rooted predicament which though with many individuals is hereditary it can happen out of the blue as mine was a RTA and hereditary can mean many years in a families past history. I feel like a different person at the moment but this is because I cannot remember my other self through the memory loss. I have had a memory rehab session of which helped me to distinguish which areas of my memory are good (above average) and others which are still developing slowly (below average) but I had to retrain myself and get myself fit enough to sit the rehab session again owing to the dyspraxia, also I feel very lucky that Friday the 13th was a very lucky day and kept going forward staying positive and believing there is always something good in everything that happens if you look for it. I am also writing this in hope people will understand my message as you don’t have to be a practising Christian to believe to see good and that hope is a powerful tool we can all use.

Thank you for that inspiring story of your life, it really is tough what you went through and it is impressive that you stay positive. Through understanding many others can see the positivity we have, along with our unusually strong willpower.